TESTIMONY BY THE INCARCERATED NATION CORP.
SUBMITTED TO THE NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY ON NOVEMBER 13, 2014
Greetings my name is Five Mualimm-ak I am the executive director of the incarcerated nation
corp. a nonprofit organization that provides reentry service to those returning directly from
solitary confinement and services to their family members. On behalf of all the previously
incarcerated members , their family members & community would like to thank Assembly
Member Daniel J. O’Donnell and Assembly Member Aileen M. Gunther for the opportunity to
present testimony on the subject of solitary confinement in New York State’s prisons and jails
and its effects on the mental health of incarcerated people. We all to well know that solitary
confinement causes serious damage not only for the mental health of all people held in such
conditions but their families and our communities because we live with it.
, During my 12 years wrongfully incarcerated ,beginning in 1999 , I served over 43,000 hours
suffering ,locked away from my family , children ,loved ones; any human contact ..everyday
faced with the small confides of a cell, muffled voices that echo throughout the walls that
separate me from the child 18 years old next door banging his head on the wall in an attempt to
gain medical attention . You see he's asthmatic and as the temperature drops well below
freezing he's is faced with having to get attention for his inhaler as his only chance of breathing
normal. Imagine living day in day out in a space the size of a small elevator , no mirrors s , it's
been so long that I no longer remember what I look like ,The lights scream down at me every day
all day like a never setting sun buzzing , the I millionth & 4th drop just hit the puddle under my
electronically controlled toilet driving me insane as if it was controlled purposely by the guard
two floors down who ignores my cries for help But he knows exactly what going on , this is
intentional torture at the expense of my own family that pays taxes that provide for me being
here. My very existence in this void free of human contact is an everyday struggle. It's amazing
that every chance taken to connect with another person here leads to punishment and just more
time here. Each morning I awake month after month year in year out it seems like the walls are
shrinking every birth day, every holiday… If that sounds a bit paranoid then you’re absolutely
right because for a person like me that suffers from schizophrenia & bi polar disorder the world
of a 6x9 cell or being trapped in a confined space like I was double celled with a man who spoke
no English and was coming down off of a heroin overdose, why ? Because New York will ticket
first, treat later. Days of insinuating agony throwing up , falling of the bed is torturous, to take a
person with exponential energy and suffers from paranoia to the extend the wind blowing under
the door that leads to my 5 steps of space for recreation cage , sounds like voices and you decide
to exacerbate that by placing me in solitary confinement. Alongside thousands of others, men
women, children the same age as my own son who suffers himself from mental illness. My
sentence... Handed out by a friend of the man who wrote the ticket un trained & insensitive to
the fact that while he’s speaking so are the voices forcing my thoughts elsewhere, he doesn’t
understand electromagnetic waves and how I feel he’s knowing my thoughts, why is his cell
phone on? When asked what kinds of additional protections or training on mental illness and
criminal justice should be provided for employees like this.
Men who are placed in those trusted fields to interact with the public must be trained in the
ailments of humans that strike over 57.7 million people. New York state has a real humane need
to create a crisis intervention team of professionals who collectively can train and certify
correctional professionals and travel to the different sectors of law enforcement qualifying and
holding them accountable to that training through certification; making New York a stronger and
better educated state.
Imagine education could have prevented countless lives to be saved, countless minds from
being crushed. There are those willing and there is ways to end isolation without dismissing
separation for those who do believe in torturing humans for profit. If you ask me and thousands
of others protection means changing the law to actually protect those most vulnerable, all
humans are vulnerable to solitary so we must halt its barbaric existence. There are many parts of
the halt solitary confinement act that will cause us new Yorkers to stand up and actually help
people suffering and that can be a scary job but what is the human cost the we are paying right
now, not too far from this very room. I am one of many that work to help those still suffering as I
too, continue to suffer and we ask that New York State be better. There is legislation right now in
this state that will end the suffering and bring about rehabilitation, the halt solitary confinement
act who I myself helped to construct is that path .there is no ‘better’ way to treat people in
prison suffering from mental illness we shouldn’t be there period.
I am permanently damaged, legally disabled, .solitary being cited by the judge, top medical
professionals of the state of New York as the primary reason. My family destroyed no marriage
can withstand the limbo of isolation. My children stolen from me, I couldn’t even remember
their faces. Why am I not worth humanity? Please make correctional institutions, institute
correction. And help me help those being dumped back out right from those cells directly into
population.
Thank your for your time and consideration in this matter.
Five Mualimm-ak
Dir. Incarcerated Nation corp.
26 Bruckner Blvd. Bronx
New York 10451